2.25N 83.40W 

Now the evening of the 16^th February – sitting up in the cockpit with Paul asleep beside me and Bennett asleep in his cabin.  The fish by the way wasn’t ‘yum yum’ at all – in fact it tasted as if I had swallowed a tin – very strange after taste; I very much regret taking her life and it has put us off catching another one for a bit. 

There is very little wind but loads of positive current so although we only have the engine just ticking over we are still doing a respectable 6 knots and are now on a rum line to the Galapagos.  There are many advantages to a calm sea and we have had a very productive day:  enough water has been made to do a wash and clothes are hanging all around me like the proverbial Chinese laundry; I have begun making the Ecuador flag (which, if you have ever seen it, is a challenging proposition!); I have mended the red ensign which was tattered and torn; cooked a pastrami, mushroom and onion stir fry with noodles and managed to sleep an extra four hours in the middle somewhere.

The sun left us yesterday and the world around us is very grey - grey sky, grey sea, with intermittent rain showers and a lightening and thunder storm which lit up the skies last night rivalling November 5th; I was asleep and missed it all but found the evidence in the morning – the Sat phone in the microwave – so it must have been bad! (Apparently this is the best place for anything electrical if you get hit by lightening).   Paul could see the storm looming on the radar and motored off in another direction but either it caught us up or we found another one.  We are in touch, on our daily radio log, with all the other Rally boats and once again  each skipper has chosen a different route with varying consequences – some have 30 knot winds, some have no wind and one boat reported going backwards (due to an adverse current!).

17^th February evening– very uncomfortable day – the weather in this part of the world is renowned to be confused and if you can imagine 15 knots of wind literally on the nose, swelly grey seas and now an adverse current  of about 3 knots you may conjure up in your mind’s eye a rocking horse going nowhere – and you would be right - even with the engine on!  More worrying is that we have used half our diesel and still have more than half way to go – about 450 miles.  Last count we were averaging 2 - 3 knots through the water and Bennett calculated he had achieved 7 miles during his watch of three hours – and burning diesel to get practically nowhere.  We cheered ourselves up this afternoon though with pork scratchings dipped in apple sauce – Bennett’s favourite and very naughty!

18^th February evening – our fifth and another frustrating day of confused seas, adverse current, rain showers and wind in the wrong direction.  We are not alone – all the Rally boats are reporting similar ordeals and one has run out of diesel.  I think I overheard one chap blaming BWR for the weather!  Well I know I said they were great but not on a par with God!   We have decided to conserve the fuel we have now (still about half) and tack back and forth laboriously to get to the Galapagos.  Most of the other yachts either have crew booked on flights to go home or luxury cruises organised when they get there so are under more of a deadline than us.  The constant rocking and rolling (without the Twistle to steady us because it is not down wind sailing) makes me feel ill and the boys rather lethargic.  The kindest way to describe myself would be to liken the noise I make to a mating bullfrog – very attractive - not! But I manage to cook our meals and to do my watches – just! Sleep is the most important thing for all of us and we are getting plenty of that. 

You would think that with 30 BWR Rally boats, about 30 ARC boats and independents all going in the same direction we would come across each other occasionally? – No!

We had read about Malpelo island and passed her rising like a shadow out of the sea a few days ago! Here is a little of the description we found on the web and having read it you would forgive us for thinking we were going to see an abundance of sea life – or any life for that matter!  We did have a visit from some inquisitive birds but read on to see what we missed:

Malpelo is uninhabited except for six soldiers, rotated biannually, plus 10 more from the patrol boat. Artisanal fishermen visit illegally from the mainland. Rain is the only source of water. Malpelo is an isolated basaltic seamount with sheer cliffs rising 4,000m above the ocean floor which extends 240 by 80 kilometers under water. Its ridge peaks at 376m above sea level, surrounded by a dozen satellite rocks. It was formed between 17 and 20 million years ago and is of volcanic origin, sited in a centre of marine-floor expansion between the Cocos and Nazca tectonic plates and related to the magmatic plume which underlies the Galapagos. This is evidenced by a wide variety of mafic and ultramafic rocks. It is wet but barren, rugged and inhospitable, in relatively cool waters, with steep submarine walls which offer little substrate for coral, but many cliffs, tunnels and caves which are encrusted with algae and invertebrates. Within the marine protected area are an underwater mountain, Bajo Bojarca, and two deeps (PNNC,2005). i, Malpelo wrasse Halichoeres malpelo, pretty goby Chriolepis lepidotus, Rubinoff's triplefin Axoclinus rubinoffi and twinspot triplefin Lepidonectes bimaculata. Populations of billfish, the main objects of sport fishermen, are plentiful.  The surrounding oceanic system and currents of the Eastern Tropical Pacific form an ecological corridor for the fish and marine life of the area, and Malpelo is an important source for the colonisation and dispersal of the benthic larvae of corals, fish and molluscs around the region. It has 17 marine mammal, 5 terrestrial and 7 marine reptile species, 61 species of birds, 394 species of fish and 340 species of molluscs. The terrestrial fauna of the island is adapted to the barren conditions and the deposits of guano which are the basis of the island's ecology, both on land and undersea. There are twelve endemic species, five terrestrial and seven marine. On land, there are a land crab Gecarcinus malpilensis, lizards Anolis agassizi and Diploglossus millepunctatus, a beetle Platynus carabidae, and a gecko Phyllodactylus transversalis, but no mammals. Over 50 bird species include the world's second largest colony (25-30,000) of masked boobies Sula granti (VU), as well as the endangered swallowtailed gull Creagrus furcatus (EN), the Galapagos petrel Pterodroma phaeopygia (CR), and the peregrine falcon Falco peregrinus, Elliot's storm petrel Oceanites gracilis, Hornby's storm petrel Oceanodroma hornbyi, magnificent and greater frigate birds Fregata magnificens and F. minor. 30 species are migratory.

Three marine communities exist around the island: vertical, coralline reefs and pelagic, which are the basis for great biological diversity. The undersea walls fall 70m, dominated by barnacles both living and as a dead substrate for numerous other species. The steep coast supports only a 10% coral cover, mainly on submarine ledges, but this provides important shelter for many fish and invertebrate species and is to have recovered well from the El Nino events of 1982-3 and 1997-8. Isolation and 20°C water below a thermocline at 30m prevent further development of coral. The pelagic fauna which comprises most of the species found in this region of the east Pacific, depends on the marine communities, and aggregate in great numbers feeding especially on the rock bottom crustaceans, and for cleaning by the butterfly fish Johrandallia nigrirostris and angelfish Holacanthus passer. Furthermore, some pelagic species are said to use the island as point of reference for navigation and as an aggregation point for reproduction.

17 species of marine mammals have been reported around Malpelo. Whales include migratory humpback Megaptera novaeangliae (VU) and occasional blue Balaenoptera musculus (EN), rorqual Balaenoptera physalis, sperm Physeter macrocephalus (VU), Bryde's Baleanoptera edeni, killer Orcinus orca, false killer Pseudorca crassidens, pygmy killer Feresa attenuata, Cuvier's beaked Ziphius cavirostris, beaked Mesoplodon sp., shortfin pilot Globicephala macrorhynchus and melon-headed Peponocephala electra whales. Bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus live around Malpelo; other dolphins occasionally seen are Risso's Grampus griseus, Fraser's Lagenodelphis hosei, striped Stenella coeruleoalba, Pacific spotted Stenella attenuata, roughtoothed Steno bredanensis, shortbeaked common Delphinus delphis and spinner Stenella longirostris dolphins. The Galapagos fur seal Arctocephalus galapagoensisi and Galapagos sea lions Zalophus californianus wollebaeki stray into the surrounding waters. There are also hawksbill turtle Eretmochelys imbricatus (CR), black turtle Chelonia agassizii (EN), olive ridley turtle Lepidochelys olivacea (EN), leatherback turtle Dermochelys coriacea (EN) and loggerhead turtle Caretta caretta (EN).

The island provides food for an abundance of marine mammals and turtles, and schools of large pelagic fish and sharks, which become more obvious when the winter thermocline rises to 15m. 394 fish are recorded of Central American species plus some indo-Pacific, some Galapagan and some endemic species. They include the giant grouper Epinephilus itajara (CR), and blacktip shark Carcharhinus limbatus (VU); the rare deep water ragged-tooth shark Odontaspis ferox, hammerhead sharks Sphyrna lewini, (300 individuals), nurse shark Ginglymostoma cirratum (VU), whale shark Rhincodon typus (VU: 1,000), whitetip reef shark Triaenodon obesus, Galapagos and ocean whitetip sharks Carcharhinus galapagensis and C. longimanus (VU). There are huge aggregations (>1,000) of silky sharks C. falciformis and moray eels (Muraenidae). Endemic fish include the Malpelo barnacle-blenny Acanthenblemaria stephensnished from the area. These include four species of marlin, blue and black Makaira nigricans and M. indica, white and striped Tetrapturus albidus and T. audax, sailfish Istiophorus platypterus, spearfish Tetrapturus pfluegeri and swordfish Xiphias gladius. There are also barracuda Sphyraena idiastes, eagle and manta rays Aetobatus narinari (EN) and Manta birostris, with great numbers of striped bonito Sarda orientalis, snappers Lutjanus sp. and travelly Caranx spp. There are the Pacific seahorse Hippocampus ingens (VU) and two endemic sea stars Tamaria stria and Narcissia gracilis malpeloensis. Many more marine species probably remain to be described, especially among the invertebrates.

Well! There you go!